Gays are people
Thank you, Pamela White, for your column, “Tyler Clementi died for your sins” (Uncensored, Oct. 7).
I happen to be heterosexual (not that it matters), but I’m in the theatre. Probably 50 percent of my friends are gay. But, more importantly, as you point out, they are people!
I teach at the University of Delaware. One of my classes this semester is for freshmen. It’s called “First Year Experience” (FYE). The intent is to try to steer the kinder away from the minefields, particularly in their first semester/year. Tomorrow (they don’t know this yet), we are abandoning our syllabus and having a discussion about Tyler Clementi’s sorrowful end, their views of homosexuality, how they treat gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans-genders, issues of privacy, the legality of posting on YouTube, Facebook and other “social networks,” etc. I’ve made copies of your column as a handout. Thank you.
Perhaps interesting observations on left-handed folk: Our son was naturally left-handed, but forced by his firstgrade teacher to become right-handed.
I now regret, as a parent, not being more apparently outraged when this occurred some 20 years ago. Our grandson is left-handed, and we celebrate his difference. I myself, naturally right-handed, am a designer and scenic artist in the theatre, but have always been secretly jealous of lefthanded people, as they seem to be generally more creative and artistically adept.
You point out also that 10 percent of the general population is left-hand ed.
I find it interesting that the same statistic is attributed to homosexuality.
Fritz Szabo/University of Delaware
Toeing the party line
(Re: “VOTE!” cover story, Oct. 7.)
What a disappointment. I picked up the Oct. 7-13 edition of the Boulder Weekly thinking I would learn enough about the candidates to intelligently decide whom to vote for
in November. Instead, for each candidate endorsed by the Weekly, all I
got was a vague, brief mention of where the endorsed candidate stands,
followed by a long, detailed explanation of why the opposing candidates
are dangerous whackjobs. Since this summary seems so focused on why I
should vote against candidates, instead of why I should vote for the
endorsed candidates, I plan to stay home and not vote at all. Perhaps
it is time to allow us to vote “none of the above” on the ballot, so we
might be able to send a message that we prefer real, informed choices,
rather than party line voting.
Dom Nozzi/Boulder
America should go to pot
(“Oakland
goes to pot,” The Highroad, Oct. 7.) Hopefully, it isn’t just Oakland
going to pot, but rather the entire state of California with all of
North America following them.
Californian
citizens have an opportunity to vote yes on Proposition 19 this Nov. 2,
effectively ending cannabis (marijuana) prohibition and extermination.
California was the first state to prohibit cannabis and could be the first state to re-legalize it, too.
Another
reason to completely re-legalize the God-given plant that doesn’t get
mentioned is that it could open the door to allowing American farmers to
grow hemp. If citizens may grow cannabis with THC, it’s reasonable to
believe American farmers may grow hemp without THC. Communist Chinese
farmers are allowed to grow hemp, but free American farmers are not, and
that is unfair for American farmers who must compete in the world
market.
Hemp
farming could eliminate the need for foreign oil, uses far less water
and pesticides than other crops and grows faster, requires factories and
factory workers that cannot be imported to foreign countries, employs
farmers, generates taxes and incomes, etc.
It’s time to re-introduce hemp as a component of American agriculture.
Stan White/Dillon
Voting ‘no’ on BVSD 3A
I
would like to know a little something about the curriculum at Boulder
Schools before I vote to raise property taxes (part of the rent the
working poor pay for shelter) to make up for the loss caused by what
Boulder School Board President Ken Roberge refers to as the “financial
crisis.”
For
example, do Boulder schools teach what caused the “financial crisis,” or
for that matter, anything about capitalism? Are Boulder students taught
how American government works, or more accurately, who owns it?
Anything about labor history — who died so that Americans could get
weekends off, overtime pay, safe work environments (assuming they have
jobs)? How about American foreign policy — anything about that? Is a
student in a Boulder County high school given the resources to weigh the
enticements of the school-invited military recruiter against reality?
In
spite of the fact that we’re being taxed to pay for our endless
borrowing of Chinese money to wage endless war, rescue the capitalists
who crashed the economy, lavishly grant the military industrial complex
its every wish (even though it did not defend us from an invasion of oil
in the Gulf of Mexico), and in spite of the fact that our government
continues to ensure we pay for the privilege of squirming on the end of
the pike upon which health insurance companies have us impaled, let’s
all sacrifice just a little bit more… for the good of the children.
Including those children who will be sent to die in the latest war the
capitalists have cook up for them.
Somehow, I don’t feel compelled. Doug Richards/Eldorado Springs
Corporate responsibility
The
recent news from Kolontar, Hungary is tragic. A reservoir berm failed
and resulted in a flood of toxic waste killing at least six and injuring
hundreds, while destroying homes, farms and businesses in its wake.
This
is very important information to those of us in Colorado who are aware
of Denver-based Cotter Corporation’s recent refusal to clean up its
Schwartzwalder mine site in Jefferson County. The site is upstream of
residential properties and currently poses a threat of contaminating
Ralston Reservoir, Denver’s drinking water supply.
Cotter
Corporation is also responsible for a Superfund clean-up site near
Cañon City and has refused to clean up or pay fines for that, as well.
Cotter
Corporation has joined an exclusive club of irresponsible corporations
that have used Colorado as a toxic-waste dump after making their profits
and leaving the waste to be cleaned up by Colorado and American
taxpayers.
That
club includes Royal Dutch Shell, and the toxins they left behind at the
Rocky Mountain Arsenal; Rockwell International and Dow Chemical, with
their plutonium waste contaminating Rocky Flats; Galactic Resources
Ltd., leaving sodium cyanide and arsenic at the
Summitville site upstream of the San Luis Valley; and Asarco,
contaminating the California Gulch near Leadville with heavy metals.
Cotter
Corporation needs to clean up after itself and be held accountable, as
it is the one that reaped the profits. If they want to look at it from a
profit-loss standpoint, they will lose a hell of a lot more if Ralston
Reservoir is contaminated by their inaction and lives are lost.
Tommy Holeman/Longmont
We need more ethanol
Last
month, an automotive engineering firm released an important study that
found that moving from 10 percent ethanol in gasoline to 15 percent will
mean little, if any, change in the performance of older cars and light
trucks — those manufactured between 1994 and 2000.
This
study, which analyzed the vehicles manufactured by six companies and
which represent 25 percent (62.8 million vehicles) of light-duty
vehicles on the road today, concluded “that
the adoption and use of E-15 in the motor vehicle fleet from the
studied model years should not adversely affect these vehicles or cause
them to perform in a sub-optimal manner when compared with their
performance using the E-10 blend that is currently available.”
At
present, the EPA is considering allowing (not requiring) the sale of
higher-blend ethanol for newer cars. We hope they will take all the
available research into account and allow higher blends for the widest
use possible. It’s time we had a real choice.
Linda Lewis/Greeley
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